“Your prognosis?”
Will shivered, and he didn’t think it started because of the temperature. “Damn, it’s cold in here!”
“It’s a prison. I’m not in charge of housekeeping,” his buddy muttered. “Just its patients.”
“Who is this rebel?”
“I’m Corporal Francois Fontaine, sir, at your service.”
Will spun and they both looked in shock. The patient had managed to prop himself upright, looking anything other than comfortable. Fever did strange things to patients, Will recalled from some medical lecture what must have been ages ago. Something about the name, though, prodded Will to ask, “So Corporal Fontaine, where do you hence?
“St. Charles Parish, Louisiana, sir. As does my father and brother.”
Will snorted. Memories started to come full color as the accident and name registered. “And, pray tell, your family planters?”
“Oui. Sugar, mostly. Plus other measures.”
He ran his fingers through his hair as Adam glared.
“Why you conversing with him? Wanna take up the slave issue with him, too? This man is a traitor. The enemy! Will, I didn’t bring you here to discuss politics, but for opinions.”
The patient, despite his feverish appearance, glared at Adam. Will, watching this scene before him about to explode, nodded at the man.
“We’ll do what we can, soldier. Dr. Sattler, if you please.” He nodded to Adam and motioned for them to leave.
Out of the room, Will paced. “First, it’s too damn cold in there for their well-being.”
“Will, they get what they deserve.”
“I can’t believe you said that. They are men.” He shook his head. He’d thought off the battlefield, the world was normal. Apparently, he was wrong, at least, in a military prison. “How can you work in that?” With a shiver, he now took in how his fellow doctor wore his entire uniform and the medical coat, layered for the temperature.
“I do the best I can.”
“You need to try harder,” he sneered.
“Then you call the Colonel about it,” Adam shot back.
He looked around his fellow-surgeon’s office. It didn’t look any warmer than his medical tent on the field. Astounding. “You really don’t have much.”
“No, I told you that. And I definitely do not have what I need, considering the number of men here. Not only do I have Confederates, but also political prisoners and Union disturbers. My hands are tied.” Adam gave him a narrow gaze and added, “Who is that prisoner to you? I saw your eyes. You know him, more than just passing through your field hospital.”
Will snorted. “Yes, I do. And it’s because of a debt owed his family, I need to get him out of here and be properly cared for, since you yourself admit to lack of equipment here to do so, considering.”
Adam jumped upright off the chair he’d taken. “You’re not going to free him!”
“No, no. I’m not, but I’m not going to let him lose that leg when I think I know someone who has worked with wounds like this, and better than I, nor let him die of gangrene here because he’s a prisoner and not deserving common care.” Will slumped into the other straight-back chair. “My father and this soldier’s family are well acquainted. His father saved mine from a debacle that would’ve ruined my family. I owe him.”
“And who do you know who can get him out?”
Will wondered that, too. “I’ll figure it out. Give a moment.”
Adam yanked a piece of stationary and started scribbling. “Here, take this. I’ve written the man’s release for better care, stating he is dying. I know we’re considered one of the better ‘hotels’ for the condemned, but the commander here is striving to show he’ll have no deaths, outside of age, on his watch. Perhaps, written by his physician, that’ll help.”
Will nodded. “Thank you.”
All he had to do was find Ada and pray she would talk to him and the patient he returned with. In more ways than one, he needed her to fix him or he’d have hell to pay.
Chapter 13
“Hello, Massa…bottom rail on top dis time.”
—Freedman soldier to his former owner, now a prison of war.
Armory Square Hospital, Washington DC
After a while, Ada believed she no longer heard the moans of the patients in the wards. The noise had turned to a low buzz to her ears. But today, their sound grew louder. With a bowl in hand and a rag over her shoulder, she stopped and looked down the row of patients and inwardly groaned. Christmas was but a week away, yet there was nothing cheerful in this building, despite the bows of evergreen that were draped from the rafters. The doctors had balked at the greenery, but she and “Dragon” Dix had argued the pine scent chased out the smell of rotting flesh and infested wounds, though the combination that she inhaled was ghastly, a present of pain encased in holiday cheer. Perhaps the surgeons had been right…
On cue, one of the patients sneezed. And sneezed again. Apparently, Lt. Fitzgibbons was not enjoying the seasonal scent. She went to his bedside first, pulling out one of the handful of handkerchiefs she shoved in her dress pocket for him.
“Here, Lieutenant.”
“I’m so sorry,” the ruddy-faced young man muttered before he blew his nose into the proffered linen. “Guessing that pine making me sneeze.”
She touched his forehead. The man had lost his foot during battle, an amputation that wasn’t done right. He’d come into the hospital with a high fever and a swollen stump, red with infection and crowned with the jagged point of bone jetting out of the closure. Another surgery was required and that reopening of the wound to round off the bone and make the closure right had a higher mortality rate. Thankfully, he had lived.
“Well, perhaps your reaction to the decoration is good,” she decided, daubing his face with a damp cloth. “You’re healing enough to notice it.”
He peered at her and a hint of a smile came. “So I’ll make it, you say?”
She bit her inner lip, swallowing the doctor inside her. Allowing that had been her ruining three weeks ago,
